>> al roker, a total delight. in one word, what will the weather be like tomorrow? >> spectacular. >> fantastic. you are spectacular. a great pleasure to have you. thank you for coming in. anderson cooper starts now. >> 360! we have a lot going on. two breaking stories, americans held hostage by armed islamic extremists in a remote part of algeria. the hostages were taken when 20 extremists attacked this petroleum operation in algeria. accounts different as to how many are being held. also the other big story, manti te'o, the story of his dying girlfriend inspired his team to victory. was he the victim of a hoax, or was he in on it in first president obama moving big and

going fast on gun control. new polling that may help explain the political need for speed. today the white house laid out profls of actions he's taken. -- proposals. one was the family of grace mcdonald. >> grace's parents are here. grace was seven years old when she was struck down. a gorgeous, caring, joyful little girl. >> i'm told she loved pink. she loved the beach. she dreamed of becoming a painter. so just before i left chris, her father, gave me one of her paintings, and i hung it in my

private study just out of the oval office. every time i look at that painting, i think about grace. i think about the life that she lived and the life that lay ahead of her and most of all, i think about how when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now, for grace. >> we may remember. i interviewed grace's parents days after the killing. they gave me a copy of that same drawing as well. i spoke with them earlier this evening. they didn't want to come on camera but were overwhelmed by the president's words and said they drew strength from his determination. what president obama plans to do, legislative and executive. he took executive action on 23 items dealing with implementing background checks, tracking firearms, making sure existing gun laws are fully enforced, executive actions means he doesn't need to get approval. on the legislative side,

he called for criminal background checks, limiting magazines to ten rounds and reinstating background checks. he acknowledges it faces strong opposition in congress. >> this will be difficult. there will be pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists warning of an all-out tyrannical assault on liberty. not because that's true but because they want to gin up fear or revenue or higher ratings for themselves. behind the scenes, they will do everything they can to block any common sense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever. >> congressional republicans have been cool to the proposals, some are open to limiting high-capacity magazines and tightening background checks. house speaker bane are -- boehner saying he'll review the

president's recommendations. one texas congressman threatening articles of impeachments over executive orders dealing with guns. the national rifle association getting far more attention for this new ad this they produced. >> are the president's kids more important than yours? why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? mr. obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes but he is just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security. protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours. >> that ad launched today. the white house called it repugnant and cowardly. highlighting nra intransigence is part of the strategy. the new poll hints at momentum for change may be starting to fade. 56% now favor an assault weapons ban compared to 62% immediately after newtown. 58% support a ban on extended magazines. last month, that was 62%. however, expanded background

checks remains popular with 87% supporting checks on gun show purchases. we'll have more on the politics shortly. first, the personal two takes on what happened at the white house today. lexi holler, the uncle of noah posner joins us along with colin goddard. colin was shot four times in a classroom at virginia tech. >> alexei, i was wondering what your reaction was to what you heard. >> well, based on what we heard before, the announcement when the families met with the president and the vice president and during the announcement itself, i was satisfied and pleased to see that the administration is treating this so seriously. i think the strong sense i got was that they were determined to make a major change here and to enact significant reforms that would put a stop to this kind of violence. >> are you optimistic alexis?

>> i'm optimistic. some of the proposals, i think there's still a lot of work to do. and in terms of other proposals. but in general, i am optimistic. i think this is an opportunity to make real change happen. >> colin, the vice president mentioned you by name. what's your reaction again to what you heard today? >> that was quite shocking to hear my name mentioned like that. overall, highly encouraged by the leadership from the white house on this issue coupled with the overwhelming support from grassroots people from across the country, including gun owners and nra members who have reached out saying what you are talking about makes sense. we think coming from the top down and working from the bottom up, it's going to lead to some positive change in the country. >> you are part of the brady campaign. you fight for gun control measures. it has become a very personal calling for you. do you think that the president can legislatively get through an assault weapons ban? >> i think we need to look at all the proposals that he is putting out there.

if we get success on any one of those is moving our country forward a great deal. background checks on all gun sales is huge. we see so much public support for that. the fact that 40% of gun sales don't have a background check with it, that's insane. i think we have a variety of issues we can make progress on. all of the people that have reached out to us over the past month and still now is going to lead us to a long-term change that we so badly need. >> alexis, what's your message to lawmakers at this point? >> the message is that we have to act now. i don't think we can wait to enact these reforms. i think the time for action is now and i think we're not going to be satisfied. we are not going to stop fighting until meaningful reforms take place. >> colin, you still have bullets in your body from the shooting. how has this changed your life? >> i mean, the shooting opened

my eyes to a world i knew nothing about. i think i was like most americans who thought we did everything we could to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and was frankly shocked to learn we don't even do background checks on everybody. this is not a career choice. this is no the not a lifelong fight for me. this is until we get something done. this is a woks to -- box to check. we have refrained the issue of whether or not if something can pass to when it is. i think that time is now. >> alexis, i appreciate you being on and colin as well. thank you very much. let's talk about the politics. so far, they have included the nra ad, a congressional threat of impeachment and a campaign style push of guns from the white house. here to talk about it, margaret hoover and charles blow and david gergen . when you look at these proposals are some nonstarters? >> first of all, many times in

the past we've complained about a lack of leadership by president obama, this time he's stepped up. he's taken the lead. this is what a president who is committed to something does. >> he went big. >> you have to give him credit for that. he went big. his problem is, he is handicapped. he doesn't have enough power through the executive office to do this alone. most of these are small bore initiatives that he'll do on his own. he needs the congress to get this done. so far, we have to bring politics into this because it is a political matter in this tragedy. so far, he just does not have the public support. he can get the background checks done. that is very doable this year. he doesn't have the support in the democratic party, much less the republican party he needs. to get it through the senate. >> there are a lot of democrats that are pro gun -- >> and up for re-election in 2014. >> how much does 2014 play into the president's calculus? >> i think it plays a little bit but not tremendously. i disagree with you a little bit on this. i think that some of the things that some of us think of as small bore are enormous.

a lot of what the president did in these executive orders was about data. right now, we live in an information vacuum. we have no idea how to track what's happening with guns in this country. if -- by executive order requiring no approval whatsoever, he is able to move on that front. that is significant. >> social security administration, which does the health data. >> the cdc. the university of chicago crime lab issued a letter to the biden commission earlier this month. 100 researchers from major universities across this country sign on to that. one thing they point out is that since 1973 to 2012, there were 4 million plus gun-related accidents or shootings or whatever. there are only three research grants from nih to look at why these things are happening. >> that information vacuum has to be stopped.

this is enormous. >> i wish you were right. >> that's right. >> i know on health research, you can do a lot. he does not have power to figure out who owns these 300 million guns in the country. nobody knows where these things are. the bureau that's supposed to keep track of this, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, atf, has been paralyzed for the last few years, doesn't have a leader. republicans have been blocked. -- blocking it. >> right now we're not collecting any data. we're flushing all of it. a lot of these executive orders say that we now are pushing people to share that information, to collect it, share it. >> what do you think? is this small bore stuff or the big things, do you think he will be able to make any headway? >> i agree with david he has certainly gone long. he is throwing the long ball. he has put big plans down on the table. i think in order to pass anything through congress, you have to strategically win over the reasonable edge of the

opposition in both the senate and in the house. it just doesn't seem like it's pragmatic to do with an assault guns ban. >> how about the high capacity magazines? >> i don't know about that either. you can pull off some republicans and democrats who have good nra ratings with universal background checks. the new poll today says 89% of republicans are in favor of this. >> i don't like to be cynical on this. let me throw this out here. is the president looking at 2014 and by going big and losing on things like an assault weapons ban or losing on the high capacity, does he win in some way? >> i think there is growing evidence that this white house is looking very closely at 2014 in a variety of ways. what's interesting to me about this. i was there in the white house in 1994 when president clinton got an assault weapons ban through. an important breakthrough.

>> then lost the house. then, he lost the house. he won the battle but lost the war. in president obama's case, he may well be in a situation where he is going to lose the battle but win the war. he is going to win the war of public opinion. brazil he's got a lot of people who are going to rally. >> you think could actually turn the house? >> i think this could be an element in shoring up his base and getting people to come out in 2014. his problem in part -- >> even if he doesn't get the assault weapons ban -- >> he gets the issue. >> this is to play to the base strategy, not a pragmatic legacy seeking. he may be trying to seek a legacy by spending political capital and getting a ban, but we all know second-term presidencies often times are legacy seeking. >> did the nra go too far with this ad? >> absolutely. the nra does no favors when they do this. they are playing to the president's strategy. they are trying to alien nate the nra. >> we all agree on that. >> and they're wrong on the

facts. the president said not that he is opposed to having more armed guards in school. he is saying he is skeptical that that solves the problems in schools. the white house kept proposal -- proposing more money for the save schools program and it was congress in 2012 that killed that money in congress. if you look at the proposal they put forth today, they basically say, explicitly say, that if some schools want to have more armed guards, that's up to them. but we want to leave it to the local districts to decide on their own. >> which is interesting. you now have the nra arguing for larger federal government putting armed people like government troops into schools as opposed to leaving did up -- it up to -- >> the nra came out with that proposal to put guards in school, everybody from the president's party went after them. durchled on them. -- dumped on them. >> that was specifically about the president, not aut democrats. the president said it. he president did not say it. it is just a lie. >> let me push back on that to

play devil's advocate. if at elite schools, they have private security and armed guards, what is wrong with at public schools having armed guards? >> and why not pay for it? >> right. so if you're arguing for that massive expansion of government, what that would require, and we're going to budget -- >> it's not massive. >> it is massive. >> we're hypothetically arguing. if they wouldn't pay for the couple million dollars that was in the safe school program, they cut that down to zero, now, they are saying, we want to put armed guards in every school to override the local government and say, your local district and say, if the parents or the school districts don't want it in that school, we are going to override and put them there anyway. that ask a massive expanse of government. >> we got to go. >> we can get into the problem, what kind of legislation is going to make us feel better than make us safer. columbine had armed guards. it didn't help. they got there too late. we need to think about what are

the reasonable laws we can pass. reasonable restrictions. >> background checks. >> yes. >> i will leave it there. let us know what you think. follow me on twitter right now @andersoncooper. americans held hostage. who is holding them? what it may take to free them. former cia officer bob bear joins us and jill dougherty has the latest from the state department. if there was a pill

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americans and other westerners are among hostages being held by islamic extremists in algeria. leon panetta is calling it a terrorist attack. the hostages were taken when 20 extremists attacked a gas field. it's a file picture of the field. it is partly owned by bp. algeria's interior minister said two people were killed, which is believed to be retaliation for algeria's support of the french fongsive in mali. as many as ten americans were working at the oil field. they haven't said how many may now be hostages. we're told a special operations team is standing by on a very short string. it's a very fluid situation. i am joined by jill dougherty and bob bear. what are you hearing? what's the latest? >> we believe obviously this happened at a gas field.

it is in eastern algeria, 37 miles from the libyan border. that's important because they believe the people that carried this out came in from the east, in from libya. they went to this gas field, owned by bp. the algerians and the norwegians. they carried out this attack. apparently they had a previous attack, it didn't work. they moved to another part of the complex. it is quite large. that's where they took the hostages. >> the man claiming responsibility is mokhtar belmokhtar. what do you know about him? >> he has broken away from al qaeda. he broke away in december. but has long standing relations. he is a sal afy. he is very hostile to the west, particularly well-armed. over the last year, he has been buying libyan arms, surface air missiles, other heavy weaponry. he is a particularly dangerous radical guy.

>> is he libyan or algerian? >> he is algerian. these are aljeerion based groups. they go back to 1992. the libyans -- the libyan revolution has opened arms they never had access to before. this has been brewing for some time. >> jill, i know defense secretary panetta has made a statement about it today. is it possible the u.s. might take military action? >> they might if they want to fry -- try to save the people held in there hostage. there are two reasons this group is giving for having carried out this act. they say it is retaliation for algeria giving france the ability to fly over algerian territory. bringing as part of this military operation in mali. but the other thing they say is they want the release of their own prisoners who are being

held. a little unclear why they're being held, et cetera. but the u.s. officials we've been speaking to believe that this was not just some type of opportunistic thing, that it was planned in advance, at least to some degree. >> right now, you have had a failed french commando raid to release a french hostage in somalia which didn't get a lot of attention. that happened several days ago. two commandos were killed as well as apparently the hostage. how difficult an operation would it be to actually send folks in there? >> it would be extremely difficult. a large land force. the french only have a couple thousand soldiers in mali. they could fly across aljeer. the algerians could participate. but how well armed are these people? if they have surface air missiles, it will not be quick. nothing like somalia. a lot of these reports coming out of sub-saharan africa are exaggerated. there is a good chance these

people could hold this facility for a long time and continue this war. i don't think this will be taken care of quickly. we could talk about months. who knows how long? >> if they have sophisticated weaponry missiles, using helicopters in any kind of raid would also be difficult? >> anderson, my security sources in sub-saharan africa said they have a-18s, particularly sophisticated. it could bring down a helicopter. not a fast-mover like a jet fighter, but it could bring a helicopter down. so a special forces raid would be particularly, you know, dicey. >> we will continue to follow it. bob baer, jill dougherty, thanks notre dame linebacker manti te'o. he's claiming to be the victim of a cruel hoax. his girlfriend, who supposedly died last september, the one he talked about in length at

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a really bizarre, unbelievable story is unfolding. a story that garnered a lot of sympathy and admiration for notre dame linebacker, manti te'o. it's been exposed as a hoax by the website dead spin.com. he almost won the heisman trophy this season. what he was supposedly dealing with off the field got a huge amount of attention, on september 11th in the span of six hours, teo got word that his grandmother and girlfriend had died. he went out and led his team to a 20-3 upset over michigan state, making 12 tackles on that

day. his strength in the face of such loss took on a life of its own. ten days later, he skipped his girlfriend's funeral because she made him promise not to miss a game. the team's coach game him the game ball in memory of his girlfriend. that's the moment captured by nbc sports. now, dead spin has learned that lenny kekua, his supposed girlfriend, never existed. there was no woman by that name. he contends he was the victim of a hoax. he said, this is incredibly embarrassing to talk about. over an extended period of time, i developed an emotional relationship with a woman i met online. i grew to care deeply about her. to realize that i was a part of a joke is humiliating. nod also released a statement saying on december 26th, they were informed by manti te'o and his parents was the victim of what appears to be a hoax.

they whether informed by him and his parents that he had been the victim of what appeared to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name conspired with him and others to say she died with leukemia. a lot of people are scratching their heads to ask how this could add up. david hawes, sports columnist with the "chicago tribune." so i don't quite understand this. he released a statement today in reaction to your investigation that said he was duped by someone online. from your reporting, does that add up? >> well, you know, i think my colleague, jack dickey, who wrote the story with me. i went out to not focus on anybody being the victim or the perpetrator here. manti te'o's story that he is completely innocent doesn't shake through for a few reasons. first, we have a lot of stories about how they met. she was a student at stanford. they met after the 2009 football game. we know that didn't happen. >> it was supposed to be a

face-to-face meeting. >> where did that story come from? there is some responsibility there for that. when he said, i know that i will see my girlfriend again someday. we know now they never saw each other in the first place. so what's he referring to when he says again someday? >> espn did an interview with him after what he said was the death of his girlfriend. i want to play part of that. >> i cried, i yelled, i never felt that way before. >> this is six hours ago. i just found out my grandma passed away. and you take the love of my life. the last thing she said to me was, i love you. that was it. >> you actually wrote stories about him for the tribune. what do you make about all this? does it add up? >> it doesn't add up anderson. i think that obviously, the explanation bears further explanation. i think you want to hear from

manti te'o himself beyond the statement. i think his best bet in a situation like this would be to be totally transparent. there is some extensive, thorough and damning reporting done here that clearly shows the need for him to explain some of the inconsistencies with the meeting and the version of when they met at stanford and if there was a misunderstanding with his father, explaining that to a south bend tribune reporter, then they need to come clean and explain that. right now, a lot of the things notre dame clearly defending him and why are they so convinced he is such an innocent victim here. >> is that the original story of their face to face meeting? there is an article from 2009 about their face-to-face meeting, kind of a tender, awkward moment. it came from his father, as far as you understand. >> the way i understand it was

that there was a version that was about the initial meeting told to the tribune and reported that way. i think that there might have been some sort of misunderstanding that jack alluded to earlier at his press conference minutes ago, and he claims that when manti tells his story completely that we will see a time line that does make sense and an explanation that makes sense. i think everybody that heard him say that is justifiably sceptical and cynical. we feel like we have been duped. until we hear him. we want to hear the other side of the story. >> he is going to give a press conference or make statements tomorrow. in all the times he talked about her, you would think if he had never met her or it was an online relationship, you would think that would be part of the story. that he would say, what's so hard about this, i never

actually even saw her face to face, that she was a voice on the other end of a phone or -- but that never came out. so it seems odd to me that he would tell the story about his girlfriend so often but never mention that he had never actually met her? >> it does seem odd. it is one of those facts or manufactured facts about this narrative that makes you very, very skeptical. that's what i mean. he needs to answer those types of tough questions and be as transparent as possible. if he is truly a victim of a cruel hoax, as notre dame put it, he has nothing to hide. very humiliating for him to come forward. certainly, everybody respects and understands that. that would be the smartest strategy if he has nothing to hide. >> can you say how you came on to this story? >> we did receive an e-mail last week that was an anonymous e-mail that said, i think there is something wrong or weird with

lennay kekua. you should check her out. my colleague, jack dickey and i started -- what go you do when you want to know something? you foogel search it. -- google. google searches for her only showed up articles about her dying and inspiring manti te'o. there was no evidence of her existing in any way other than after she had allegedly died. we thought that was a little weird. we called into stanford. several articles insisted she had been a stanford student or a stanford alumni. nothing checked out there. we called all the mortuaries and funerals homes in carson, california, where several sources reported she had been buried. they had no information. this told us there was something really weird going on here. when we were finally able to track back and see all these pictures that had represented lennay kekua, we found the actual alive, doesn't have

leukemia and hasn't met manti te'o person that they belongs to, that opened everything up. >> were you able to reach out to him directly? i wonder what his initial response was if you were. >> te'o? >> yeah. >> we called. he was not accepting phone calls on the number that we had. i would love to have talked to him and heard his side of the story. i'm agnostic about this. whether he got scammed or whether he set this up from the beginning, i don't really have an opinion about it either way. i'm just trying to solve the mystery and sort of tell the end of the story. what's going to happen now is he is going to have his examples and his spin that helps the future of his career and the likelihood that we get the truth is pretty slim. sngets we'll see. he's supposed to make comments tomorrow. we'll be following closely.

a lot of people talking about this tonight. i appreciate you calling in and timothy berk as well. remarkable story. thank you so much. troubling new questions about the hit and run killing of a black man. three white teens were in the car that hit him. local law officials say that race was not a factor. court documents obtained exclusively by cnn's drew griffin have opened a new window in the case. we are keeping him honest. from the u.s. postal service. we'll even drop off boxes if you need them.

welcome back. keeping them honest now. just over a year ago we told you about a horrific hate crime caught on tape, a group of white teens beating up an african-american man in a parking lot in jackson, mississippi. exclusive surveillance video was obtained by cnn that showed one of the teens backing up his pickup truck so he can actually drive over james anderson's battered body. the 47-year-old auto worker died. a federal investigation followed. the truck's driver, deryl deadmon, pleaded guilty to murder and admitted he was a part of white teens who drove around looking for black victims to beat up. the sixth member of the group pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes just this month.

now 125 miles north of jackson, another african-american man has been killed by a white teenager in a car. this time no hate crime charges have been filed, and outrage is growing. our investigative reporter drew griffin tonight keeping them honest. >> reporter: it was early on a hot july sunday morning. and right on schedule, just about 6:30, 61-year-old johnny lee butts left his rural mississippi home, heading out for his morning ritual, a four-mile walk. his neighbor, otis brooks, says butts, a sunday school teacher, waved as he passed his front door, wearing a blue t-shirt. let me ask you a dumb question. could you tell he was black? >> yeah, you could tell he was black. you could see his arm. >> reporter: nearly 7:00 a.m., an hour after sunrise, three white teenagers were barreling down panola county, mississippi highway 310 in a white monty carlo. two of the three teens admit they'd had been drinking vodka and smoking marijuana all night.

they were headed towards johnny butts. the two passengers say they and the driver of the white monte carlo, 18-year-old matthew whitten darby spotted a man walking on the shoulder on the opposite side of the road. in statements to police and grand jury testimony obtained exclusively by cnn, the two teenagers who were with whitten darby, a then 15-year-old and an 18-year-old named tony hopper jr. describe what happened next. "we see a walker on the side of the road," the 15-year-old tells police. the complete left side of the road while we are on the complete right side of the road. and i pointed out to say watch out, there is a walker there. as we get closer, the 15-year-old says whit slightly turned the steering wheel and i saw him. watch out, don't do nothing stupid, and he just kept turning the steering wheel. eventually before we knew it, he

ran him straight over." the 18-year-old, tony hopper, told a sheriff's deputy "he didn't slow down. the officer asks "he never hit his brakes?" "no, sir." "do you think he hit him on purpose?" "yes, sir, i do." johnny lee butts was hit from behind by a car, traveling somewhere between 55 and 70 miles per hour. he was violently tossed into the air, slammed into the windshield. one leg nearly severed off. his head bouncing off the back windshield. this diagram in the police report shows butts' body was found lying in the road, 172 feet from where he was hit. matthew whitten darby stopped his badly damaged car. his two passengers told police they got out, looked at the body, then jumped back in the car while darby sped away. the next day, the two teenaged passengers turned themselves in. whit darby was arrested, telling

police exactly what the two other teens said he would say, that he hit a deer. darby denied he was drinking or smoking marijuana. he and his lawyer and the two passengers aren't talking to cnn. darby hasn't entered a plea. so this was the route that your dad would walk every morning? >> yep, every morning. >> reporter: donny butts, johnny's only child, now walks this route to see the cross he laid at the spot where his father died. it's been seven months. matthew whit darby is in jail charged with murder, but not with the added crime of hate. in this racially charged area of rural mississippi, confederate flags fly in front of homes just down the road from where johnny butts was killed. his son donny, his family, and many other blacks in this community say the police, the district attorney, the white law enforcement of panola county aren't investigating why johnny lee butts was killed. they say the motive was hate.

>> they knew he was black. that was the only reason why they ran him over, because he was black. point-blank. >> reporter: the d.a. so far has said flat-out this was not a crime of race. >> well, what was it? i want to know what was it. if it wasn't racism. it was just hate. i don't understand. >> reporter: the district attorney in this case told cnn one reason a hate crime has been ruled out is that the boys in the car that morning could not see whether the walker, johnny butts, was black or white. but that is not true according to the statements given by one of the teens in that car. in grand jury testimony obtained by cnn, tony hopper, who was riding in the back seat, said he could see johnny butts was black before he was hit. "could you tell whether he was a black man or a white man before y'all hit him" asks an

investigator? "yes," hopper says. "i could tell he was black." it's the same thing he said the day after the killing when a sheriff's deputy asked did you all know if he was black or white. the teen said "i could tell he was a black man." the 15-year-old passenger in the car riding in the front seat says he couldn't tell. there is also this, an interview with tony hopper's mother shortly after the incident. >> was racist. two of those kids freaked out. >> hope hopper has since said nothing about the crime. her son has not been charged. she did tell local media that after speaking out, she and her family received death threats. she has declined comment to cnn. >> i understand what she said. and i don't know where she got that from. >> reporter: john champion is the local district attorney. >> never presented us with any kind of reason to believe that it was race-related.

i don't have a single piece of evidence in front of me to indicate that it was race-related, including the testimony of the two young men that were in the car. >> reporter: you have three white teenagers running down a black guy on the side of the road. from anybody on the outside looking in, that looks like not only a hate crime, but a repeat crime from what we had in jackson. >> well, i certainly disagree with you on its face that it does. and certainly one of the things that we investigated when we began the initial part of it is was this in fact a hate crime. and the investigators looked at not only the facts of the case as far as the actual crime is concerned, but we also looked at a motive. and during the course of the investigation, we uncovered absolutely nothing that indicated that this would be a hate crime. >> reporter: john champion has no idea what the motive was. the sheriffs investigators in interview transcripts obtained by cnn don't even bother to ask. champion says the investigation has exhaustively looked at the

background of whit darby and found no racism. he even says he called in the fbi in which he says race was not a factor. but the fbi isn't so sure. a spokesperson telling cnn the fbi absolutely considers this investigation to be still open. pastor fred butts is jonny butts' brother. >> reporter: do you believe the district attorney and the sheriff either don't want to or are afraid to know the truthd? >> i think they don't want to. they don't want to push that issue. >> reporter: they don't want to push race? >> i actually believe that, that they don't want to push that issue. >> reporter: and there is this. days after johnny lee butts was killed, and literally just around the corner, these four boys were walking on the shoulder of this road when two white men they say in a white jeep aimed straight for them, scaring them into the ditch. and they were laughing when they passed by? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: and just kept going?

>> yes, sir. >> reporter: scared you? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: neighbors told cnn they watched the whole thing from their porch. we tried to get hold of the police incident report. to our surprise, after repeatedly declining to be interviewed, sheriff dennis darby himself called us back. he told us there is nothing in this report, and that he wouldn't give it to us. then warned cnn not to, quote, stir up trouble in his county. adding, you do something with this and i'll be coming after you. matthew whit darby, no relation to the sheriff, goes on trial for murder, but not a hate crime, next month. >> this is a really stunning report there are so many inconsistencies here and what the police are saying. the mother of one of the teens in the car who killed the man on the side of the road, she said it was racially motivated. do we know if investigators even talked to her? >> from the records we have obtained, anderson, which

include witnesses' list, she is not on any witness list. we have no transcript of any interview that was done with her. so despite that public assertion that she said, look, this was racist and her son was involved, we don't believe that investigators ever went to find out what she was saying. she won't talk to us. basically, she has been telling people she is scared to speak out. >> and that second incident, do the police, the sheriff, darby investigators, do they try to do anything to find that jeep? >> it doesn't appear that they did anything at all. we're not even sure if the police believed these kids. here is what happened. an officer came out, write-up the one-page report. it's the report the sheriff won't let us see. but as far as any investigation, there is no evidence that they went and tried to corroborate the story or even tried to find the driver of that jeep down that road. it's just let go. >> and the kids remain scared? >> they do. and i'm going to tell you, anderson, they're not the only ones. and people are beginning to ask about other cases.

three years ago, a black man was found dead on the side of a rural road in this county. the medical examiner determined he had been run over by a car, but i can tell you there is no evidence of any sort of investigation there either. no arrest, no car, no explanation as to how this black man was just found hit by a car on the side of the road three years ago. >> three years ago. wow. well, drew, we'll see this -- if this lpt changes -- if this report changes anything. we'll continue to follow it. appreciate it, drew. great investigation. shocking images of a helicopter in central london today after it struck a crane, crashed onto the street below. take a look at it. we'll have the latest developments of what happened ahead. looking at long-term health benefits for men over 50. the one they used in that study... centrum silver. that's what i take. my doctor! he knows his stuff. [ male announcer ] centrum. the most recommended. most preferred. most studied. centrum, always your most complete.

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construction crane in thig fog, killing the pilot a person on the ground. the wreckage was on fire. massive smoke rose during the height of the morning commute. the faa has ordered airlines to stop flying boeing 787s until they can show they fixed a fire risk linked to battery problems. this move comes after japan's two largest airlines grounded their dreamliner fleet following an emergency landing in the country, and another incident in boston. and in portland, oregon, rescue crews freed a woman trapped between two buildings for about four hours. she was stuck in an area about 10 inches wide, and according to reports, she fell into that area after she was seen walking or smoking on a rooftop, but she is okay. and anderson will be right back with the "ridiculist." ♪

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tonight we have the story of what may be the best weather forecast ever, courtesy of andrew koz ak is the ktlu in tulsa, oklahoma. it seems the computer that generates the graphics for his weather broadcast went down. he went old school. >> i can tell you right now it's 15 and 18 at tulsa international. >> the computer goes down. whots a weather forecast without a check on the radar? [ laughter ] >> here's a look at the radar. >> looks like somebody rerouted the red river. >> you need thicker paper. >> yeah, your day planner, getting your day started, thoiz are not snowflakes. those are stars. >> i sort of see that. the problem with hand drawn weather